


On Directness

by its_pronounced_wiener_slave



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fill, Semi-established relationship, Teasing, UST, Use your imagination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 02:38:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10584672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_pronounced_wiener_slave/pseuds/its_pronounced_wiener_slave
Summary: When Noctis needs to be fitted for an upcoming event and the tailor is unavailable, his faithful steward lends a hand. Both hands, in fact.forFroggie!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Froggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Froggie/gifts).



Ignis enters the Prince’s chambers with a huff and a grimace, hoping to find him waiting patiently and fully dressed, though inclined to believe he’s yet to emerge from the comparative warmth and safety of his many blankets. To his chagrin, the latter proves to be the case, so he wastes not a moment striding purposefully to his bedside and rousing him with one hand, the other still clutching a clipboard beneath his arm.

Noctis is stiff beneath his grip, a hipbone if Ignis is correct, though it is difficult to be sure given the protective barrier of fabric barring Prince from Real World. There sits his cell phone on his bedside table, face up, clearly shoved aside for the sake of oversleep only minutes after speaking to Ignis regarding the pretext behind this precise visit.

“Rise and _shine_ , Highness,” he says soft but strong, a bit of sarcasm eking out presence in his tone. “You are handsome, indeed, however not even the likes of a Prince require quite this degree of beauty sleep.”

He shakes at his jutting hipbone gently at first, then more vigorously until an audible moan can be heard from Noctis, followed by an undulation of blankets that appears curiously like the splaying open of arms and legs.

A shock of tousled hair with bright eyes appears from beneath blankets.

Ignis has already drawn his hand back to his side when he smiles at Noctis, despite the bit of nagging stress that upheaved his early morning, remembering that Noct was neither the cause, nor does he deserve to suffer its consequences.

That, or the sight of his sleepy eyes managed to steal away some of the tension that kept a sharp line between Ignis’ brows since his day began.

“Why are you like this?” Noctis asks, groggy, words a bit muffled by the comforter draped over his nose and mouth.

Ignis ignores the question, turning on his heel to sweep the curtains open wide, nearly blinding his charge and sending him retreating once again beneath bedclothes.  A crooked grin emerges naturally as Ignis abandons the clipboard at Noct’s bedside table, tasking both hands with peeling layers of covers away until Noctis yanks at the final one in a last ditch effort to hide his mostly bare body from Ignis’ prying eyes.

“ _Tch,_ being a little invasive, don’t you think?” he barks as Ignis lets go the sheet. Noctis pulls it between his knees and to his chest, hardly obscuring the sight of his slight frame.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Ignis replies as he steps back, beckoning Noctis from his bed with an open palm. “Now, shall we?”

Noctis gives him a look that says he’s given in, though he’s far from happy about it, before sitting up to swing his legs awkwardly over the edge of the bed. When his toes hit the floor, though, it becomes an entirely different story; his weight shifting as his arms brace, then raise him from a seated position with more grace than was necessary. His ability to alternate smoothly between lackadaisical youth and alluring, potentially dangerous creature never ceased to throw Ignis off kilter, if for no other reason than the fact that it was utterly stunning to behold.  He swipes a hand through his unruly hair as if it might make any difference, little twitching muscles in his chest and shoulder catching Ignis’ eye for the briefest moment.

A moment Ignis hopes goes unnoticed, but he’s not so confident that’s the case.

“Let’s get this over with,” Noctis says, yawning, and like the at times cruel thing that he could be, he stretches long, one arm bent behind his neck and the other reaching ever upward, sending things rippling and jouncing that Ignis thinks may lead him inexorably to an early grave.

“Do let’s,” he responds a touch tersely, clearing his throat as he turns toward the open area at the foot of Noct’s large bed, pulling a cloth tape measure from the inner breast pocket of his suit jacket and unfurling it as Noctis plods over in naught but his boxers, shoved awkwardly down by sleep and exposing a great deal more skin beneath his navel than Ignis needed to see. He busies his hands; head tilted downward at the tape measure as he glances once, twice, and then clears his throat again.

“Not going to dress?” he asks.

Noctis has already turned his back to Ignis and raises his arms at his sides, yawning yet again.

“It’s more accurate or whatever without, right? I’ll just throw something on after.”

A pause. If a pause could ever be characterized as _loud_ , this occasion might qualify.

“Right,” Ignis exhales, taking the tape between thumb and forefinger as he prepares to measure jacket length first.

There is, of course, a tailor for tasks like these, and were it not for an unfortunately timed family emergency, he’d have been called upon to retrieve such details from the Prince in Ignis’ place. Seeing as Noctis hasn’t been fitted in quite some time, it became clear in preparation for an upcoming gala that he’d woefully outgrown his finest suits, and what _did_ still fit were pieces that were dreadfully ill nuanced.

Noctis doesn’t even stir a millimeter when Ignis presses the end of the tape measure to the base of his neck and pins it steady with his forefinger, drawing it straight down along his spine with the other hand.  He holds his breath as his knuckles graze skin all the way, until skin turns to underclothes, and then Ignis is ghosting those very same knuckles between two small, round cheeks; touching without touching.

He swallows hard as he pauses to complete the motion. Notes the measurement.

Ignis pulls away silently to record the number on the clipboard, to which Noctis snorts and drops his arms.

“In good time,” Ignis says, addressing the Prince’s little frustrated sound as he scrawls on the clipboard before dropping it at the foot of Noct’s bed. “Keep your arms at your sides.”

Noctis follows him with his eye line as Ignis draws near, pursing his lips as though amused by something Ignis couldn’t quite discern. There is still a long indentation across his cheek from hard sleep on a soft pillow, but being so close results in Noct catching him in the act of inspection.

 _No matter_ ,  Ignis thinks as he places the tape measure at the top of Noct’s right shoulder and begins to pull downward yet again.

“Sleeve length is next.”

The weight of Noct’s stare is painfully apparent.

“So why’re you doing this again instead of the usual guy?”

“You doubt my abilities, Highness?” Ignis asks as he holds the tape still at the elbow and completes the measurement at the wrist.

“I didn’t say all that.”

“Well,” Ignis walks toward the clipboard, scrawls, returns. “I’ve become quite the sartor in service to a particularly careless Prince who shall remain nameless.” He touches Noctis lightly at the bare shoulder, adding pressure enough to indicate he’d like for him to turn, to which Noct eventually obliges. Slowly, as if to prove a point.

“ _Careless_ , he says.”

Ignis repeats his actions with Noct’s left arm.

“A lost button here, a ripped seam there. You’d sleep in the very same clothes you ran ragged all day if it weren’t for my interference.”

“Nah, not true. I’d at least take the pants off,” Noctis quips, tilting his head to his left and flashing a crooked smile at Ignis, his hair falling softly away from his face with the motion. Ignis freezes for a moment, breath caught in his throat and thoughts rightly jumbled.

“Raise your arms.”

Noctis complies, looking downright smug, until Ignis stands before him, wraps his arms around his chest. He hovers near Noct’s ear, can hear the way he inhales sharp and holds it, before Ignis pulls the tape measure taut across his bare back and folds it forward beneath Noct’s arms.  Standing up straight, Ignis neatly brings the ends of the tape together at the center of a sternum struggling to hide laboring breaths.

“Arms at your sides,” Ignis commands, and while it’s subdued, it’s no less threatening.

Blinking several times, Noct obeys, choking down a reply as Ignis eyes his body where the two ends of the tape measure meet, then lets them fall unceremoniously down the length of Noctis’ torso as he turns to take up the clipboard again.

When he returns to retrieve a measurement at the Prince’s waist, he’s all but incapable of ignoring the goosebumps along his flushed skin. Again, he encircles Noctis in his arms, and this time the bridge of a nose meets his jawline just as he draws back.

“ _Noct,_ ” Ignis starts to chide.

“Accident.”

Ignis pinches the measure together just above the Prince’s navel.

“The smirk is no _accident._ ”

Again, he scrawls on the clipboard.

“Sue me,” Noctis bites his bottom lip and turns away, stifling something. The late morning sun highlights his skin and sets him aglow, but he doesn’t seem entirely aware of how it moves Ignis on the inside.

Not entirely.

Ignis stoops to the Prince’s right to touch the measure from hip to ankle, resting fingertips to a bare hip to coax Noctis to turn once he’d mentally recorded the measurement. He repeats the steps and makes note of both numbers on the clipboard as he crouches, setting it aside to conclude this ordeal with the inseam.

Ignis clears his throat, creeping forward so that his face is perilously near the respectable swell in Noct’s boxers. He knows the sound has cut a smile in the Prince’s face but he has to let it go, seeing as his fingers are curiously numb as he lays the end of the tape measure high up on Noct’s inner thigh, knuckles so close to where they shouldn’t be that he can feel the warmth there.

“Careful down there, that stuff is important,” Noctis says through a snicker, and Ignis presses his index finger a little harder into his leg than he likely needed.

“Mature, Noct,” he replies as the measure reaches the ankle, Ignis notes, repeats on the other leg.

There’s a pause then, a silence that settles as Ignis allows a few too many fingers to come into contact with the tender flesh before dropping the tape altogether.

A sigh from Noctis.

One last time Ignis clears his throat as he clambers a little clumsily for the clipboard to scribble the last bit of information down. His heart thrums loud in his chest, the heat at his collar turning his skin pink. Just as he’s swallowing down the remainder of his indecency, fingertips add pressure to his glasses in a way that startles him.

He glances up at Noctis as the Prince lifts the same hand that was just adjusting Ignis’ glasses to his own hair, boyishly brushing a few strands from his eyes.

The thrumming stops only because Ignis’ heart seems to have skipped a beat.

“Crooked,” Noctis murmurs, and this time he isn’t smiling.

There’s heat in Ignis’ cheeks that he simply must hide, and a finger to the center of his glasses does just the trick. Straightening, he returns the tape measure to his breast pocket and the clipboard tucked neatly beneath his arm.

“ _Highness_ ,” he coos, and he knows it comes out far too familiar. Far too soft. His eyes rove the Prince’s body one final time, top to bottom, covetous, before resting on his face. “Please, dress yourself. You’ve a full schedule today.”

Noctis’ eyes are full and bright; he is no fool, no child, and his gaze stalks after Ignis as he strides across his chambers to make his exit.

Once on the other side of the door, Ignis mercifully releases a breath he’d been holding for what felt like days. Pressing his back against it, he sucks in air to clear his mind and control whatever it is that’s unfurling itself in his groin.

_You can’t always have what you want, Highness._

The corners of his lips curl despite his best efforts to regain some semblance of decorum.

_Be more direct next time._

**Author's Note:**

> as is tradition; kudos appreciated, comments lusted after :3c


End file.
